


Heroes always get remembered/but you know legends never die

by bannanachan



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 15:55:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13080273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bannanachan/pseuds/bannanachan
Summary: Centuries down the line, Kravitz, Lup, and Barry make one more exception to the rules.





	Heroes always get remembered/but you know legends never die

It’s a long, long, _long_ time before any of them even has to think about it.

Magnus goes first, followed shortly by Lucretia, then Davenport, then Merle. Every death peaceful, of old age, and completely bittersweet. Well-earned final rests at the end of their long journey. The Bureau of Balance slowly dissolves as, one by one, its members join their friends over decades that turn into centuries. The world never, ever stops telling their story.

Centuries, slowly, turn into millennia. Immortality’s greatest enemy is boredom, but lucky for them, they’re never bored. It’s easy to stay busy with work. So it sneaks up on them, when they do have to think about it.

Taako doesn’t change much over the centuries, or if he does, he does slowly. His interests, his attitude, his fashion, his food. His hair goes gray suddenly, or maybe they day they notice is just the day he decides to stop hiding it. His skin never wrinkles, but he starts complaining sooner when he goes on long walks. Eventually, he stops going on them altogether.

Lup calls them to order around a small round table in a heavily locked-down pocket dimension, and just to be safe, she sets him to babysitting Merle’s great-grandkids before they get started.

“I’ve brought you here today to address the elephant in the room,” She begins, “and sadly, I don’t have the time or energy to make elephant in the room jokes, so let’s just get to it. Taako’s old.”

Barry runs a hand through his hair awkwardly. “I mean… you’ve been alive a long time. We knew this would happen.”

“Okay, so no one is contesting that time exists, hon, but what are we going to do about it.”

“I don’t know if we can do anything about it. This is hard for all of us, of course, but -”

“Barry, I love you with all of my heart and I will continue to do so _literally forever_ , but whatever the end of that sentence was going to be, no.”

He frowns. “Sweetie, it’s not that easy. This isn’t just… we can’t just ignore the sacred order of things because it suits us.”

Lup looks straight at Kravitz, who stands silently with his hand on his chin. “Can we?”

Barry looks over at him too, and for a second, the couple’s last thousand years of on-the-job learning is out the door.

Kravitz hmms, then pops out of the room. Only a moment later, he returns carrying a bowl. He sets it down on the table between the three of them and begins to gesture.

“Think of it like this bowl. The people that we need to worry about…”

***

They draw straws to determine who’s going to talk to Taako. Kravitz draws the short one.

He’s sitting on the couch, nonchalantly pretending to read, when Taako comes through the door. He gives him a kiss, and tells him there’s something he wants to talk to him about.

Before the words have fully left his mouth, Taako’s finished casting Blink. Kravitz waits sixty seconds (he counts) and his boyfriend reappears ten feet away, already heading down the hall to their bedroom.

He follows him. “If you’ll just hear me out -”

“No! I won’t!”

“You don’t even want to know what I wanted to say?”

Taako sticks his head around a door frame. “Can’t we just cross this bridge when we get to it? Like, I’m pretty sure I’ve got at least a century left. We can put it off. I’m not gonna do anything stupid, we don’t have to do this.”

“How did you know that was what I wanted to talk about?”

“A pocket dimension, honey? To hide from _me_? I expect more from all three of you next time.”

“Okay, fine. We can talk about it later. Maybe next week? Let’s see, there’s four of those in a month, and twelve hundred months in a century…”

Taako glares at him.

“Or we could just talk about it now.”

Taako steps fully into the door frame and leans against it. “Okay, but like, first things first, let’s talk about wardrobe. Because I’m not wearing one of those over-dramatic bullshit black cloaks. So if that’s a requirement, the whole thing is out the door.”

“Lup makes it work, I’m sure you could figure it out.”

“Lup makes everything work, idiot.”

***

Between Lup, Taako, and the Raven Queen herself, the discussion of how much fanfare there should be comes very close to fisticuffs. It only resolves itself when Istus gets involved on Taako’s behalf, resulting in a small ceremony with decor that is slightly gaudy, but doesn’t cross the boundary into gauche.

If it doesn’t go well, his family assures him that they’ll kill him quickly. But with two gods in the room, no one’s really worried that it isn’t going to go well.

He spends the whole day with his sister before the two of them materialize into the small chamber where the rest of the group is waiting. Gives her a long hug, and Kravitz a long kiss, before walking to stand before the Raven Queen.

He turns back to look at his family for a second, brow furrowed slightly. “Nobody look at me while I’m a weird gross skull person.”

There are several nods of assent, which are almost certainly lies.

Taako sighs and turns back to the Raven Queen. “Okay. Do your thing.”

“ ** _TAAKO, WE HAVE GATHERED HERE TODAY TO WITNESS YOUR FINAL TRANSFORMATION INTO A MEMBER OF OUR RETINUE. AS MY SERVANT YOU SHALL BE GIFTED EXTRAORDINARY POWERS AND AN ETERNAL UNDEATH. LONG HAVE YOU BEEN LOYAL TO OUR CAUSE AND ITS AGENTS. ARE YOU NOW PREPARED TO MAKE THE ULTIMATE SACRIFICE IN EXCHANGE FOR THE ULTIMATE REWARD?_** ”

She had workshopped the speech with Kravitz for hours ahead of time. It’s not like there was a script on file. This was kind of a one-time thing.

Taako nods and smiles. “Hell yeah, dude.”

“ ** _DO ANY OF THIS ASSEMBLY BEAR OBJECTION TO THIS TRANSFORMATION?_** ”

There is a moment of silence and then a shout of “Kill it, babe!” from Lup, followed by a snort of laughter at her own bad joke.

“ ** _THEN WE SHALL BEGIN._** ”

Taako closes his eyes and the Raven Queen lifts her hands. Wrapped in a bright red cloak, his soul lifts out from his body, shivering slightly in the low light as his physical form collapses to the ground in a heap. Optimism aside, there is a moment of tension - maybe two seconds - where it could go either way, where the onlookers ready their scythes and steal their hearts. And then Taako dabs, and the whole room cheers as his spirit drifts back down.

He stands back up and dusts himself off. Bows deeply to the Raven Queen, and then to Istus, before walking over to his still cheering family and planting a kiss on Kravitz’ lips.

“The dab was a test. You all fucking looked. Assholes.”

The Raven Queen cackles. “ ** _LET US BEGIN THE CELEBRATION!_** ”

The next morning, when he discovers that the undead can still get hangovers, Taako doesn’t let them hear the end of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Technically not a drabble since it capped out at just over 1k. I didn't tag with major character death because... I don't really think this counts? I mean it's intended to be happy... but I'll add the archive warning if someone asks.
> 
> Thank you to the McElroys for their existence and also the excellent gift that is TAZ Balance. I'm almost certainly not gonna write anything other than this for this fandom, but I hope y'all enjoyed it!
> 
> Title is from Emperor's New Clothes by Panic! at the Disco.


End file.
